domingo, 14 de dezembro de 2008

Obama win forces Brazil to take a tolerance check

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – What struck the Brazilian woman most forcibly as she watched U.S. election returns on television was seeing Barack Obama's two young daughters.

"I can't believe those two little girls with hair like mine will be in the White House," said 31-year-old Carolina Iootty Dias, putting her hand to her head, tears in her eyes as she watched the screen.

Black Brazilians such as Dias, a human rights worker, celebrated Obama's election as giving hope worldwide. But the country that prides itself on racial mixing and tolerance is also being forced to take a reality check.

Though half of Brazil's 190 million people are black — the world's largest black population outside Nigeria — power remains firmly in the hands of whites. The country has few blacks in top political positions, and government studies consistently show blacks in Brazil earn half as much as whites.

"This Brazilian hypocrisy that says racism does not exist is one of the things that keeps the nation from advancing," said Stepan Nercessian, an actor and Rio de Janeiro city councilman, who is white.

Latin America's largest country has long looked down its nose at the racial discord in the U.S. — segregation laws, civil rights battles and a strained social dialogue that continues today.

But Obama's election is making Brazilians look inward, with some arguing that an American-style struggle is exactly what Brazil is missing.

"I think it is important for young black Brazilians to know how the civil rights movement progressed in the U.S. and how it produced not just Obama, but blacks at the highest levels of American businesses," said Edson Santos, Brazil's minister of racial equality, who is black. "It is important that they have contact with this reality."

Glaucia Carvalho Oliveira is one of those young people.

"All of a sudden, Obama has arrived and taken us to the next level," she said, sweat glistening on her face as she assembled her snack stand on Rio's Copacabana beach. "We black Brazilians need him as much as the Americans do."

Brazil and the U.S. were two of the largest slave-owning societies in the Americas — some 4 million shipped to Brazil and 500,000 to the U.S. — and the two countries that benefited most from the slave trade.

Brazil freed its blacks in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so. In that year it abolished all its race laws, while American blacks had to fight for more than 100 years after they were freed to gain full rights as citizens.

Black and white Brazilians mix easily in both marriage and social venues, from soccer matches to samba clubs. Beyond the half of the population that is black, most Brazilians are of mixed ancestry and have a census category, "parda."

No such category exists in the U.S. census. Obama, who is half white and identifies as black, could call himself parda if he were Brazilian.

Despite Brazil's social ease around race, many argue that its blacks simply moved from the slave quarters to the slums.

They are only 3 percent of Brazil's college graduates. Only one senator among 81 is black, which mirrors the U.S. breakdown, except that blacks are only 13 percent of the U.S. population. Twelve of Brazil's lower house's 513 members are black, compared with 46 out of 435 U.S. house members.

With Brazil's history of authoritarian governments and extreme poverty, blacks only started organizing in the last 40 years, said Reginaldo Lima, who is black and directs AfroReggae, which works on race and violence issues in Rio's slums.

Six years ago the country elected its first blue-collar president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a white man who enjoys huge support among blacks. But only two of his 28 government ministers are black.

In 2003 Brazil appointed its first black Supreme Court justice, Joaquim Barbosa, whom some consider a future presidential candidate. Barbosa traveled to Washington to watch the U.S. elections.

Many whites play down the level of prejudice in Brazil, saying the inequalities are economic, not racial.

"We see people not as black or white. We don't look at a black person and think they are not as capable as whites," said medical secretary Liliane Lyra, 43. "It is more a social problem that separates the races here, a lack of opportunity for the poor."

But Alannah Xavier, 26, says her black skin, not her economic status, keeps her from getting work as a model in Brazil.

"You know where I work the most? In Germany ... a nation that is supposedly so racist with its Nazi past," said Xavier. "Here in Brazil they only have work for blondes. Crazy, no?"

Since Silva took office, there have been positive changes, notably affirmative action in the university system, said Jose Vicente, director of Ciudadana Zumbi dos Palmares University, who is black.

Lima says Obama's election will help that struggle.

"Barack Obama represents what every black person in the world has been hoping for: that the fight of the dream for racial equality in North America can spread to the entire world," he said.

Others doubt there will be an "Obama effect."

"This is a very racially mixed country, but all the elites are white. Things have been so bad for so long, I think people just accept it," said Carlos Eduardo Antones, 21, a waiter and part-time student who is black.

Either way, Emmanuel Miranda is happy to savor the moment.

The 53-year-old Rio de Janeiro policeman, who is black, sipped an espresso in a cafe off Copacabana beach, lit his first cigarette of the day, and declared a new era.

"The U.S. is a country to dream about, and for us black Brazilians it is even easier to do so now," he said. "God bless you and your beautiful country."

___

Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and APTN producer Flora Charner in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

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Portrait of Obamaby Kim Gledhill

Quotes

“When I take that oath of office, there will be kids all over this country who don’t really think that all paths are open to them, who will believe they can be anything they want to be. And I think the world will look at America a little differently.” - Barack Obama, 2006

"I didn't come here to debate the past. I came here to deal with the future ... We must learn from history. But we can't be trapped by it." - Barack Obama, Summit of the Americas 2009

“To those who would tear the world down: we will defeat you. This is our moment. This is our time.” - Barack Obama

"Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House." - Barack Obama

"'I think people will see that I'm not afraid to have folks around me who complement my strengths and who are independent. I'm not a believer in a government of yes-men. I think one of the failures of the early Bush Administration was being surrounded by people who were unwilling to deliver bad news, or who were prone to simply feed the president information that confirmed his own preconceptions." - Barack Obama

"I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election." - Barack Obama

"The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Electing a black president says around the world that you can overcome old wounds. I’ve said in our case, We have a birth defect, but it can be overcome." - Condoleezza Rice

"Things do change. There is a God. They do get better." - David Dinkins

“I think that Senator Obama brings a fresh set of eyes, fresh set of ideas to the table. I think that Senator McCain, as gifted as he is, is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda with a new face and a maverick approach to it, and he’d be quite good at it, but I think we need more than that.” - Colin Powell (endorsing Obama on 19/10/08)

"I will vote for the individual I think that brings the best set of tools to the problems of 21st-century America and the 21st-century world regardless of party, regardless of anything else other than the most qualified candidate." - Colin Powell

"The United States of America is an extraordinary country. It is a country that has overcome many, many, now years, decades, actually a couple of centuries, of trying to make good on its principles. And I think what we are seeing is an extraordinary expression of the fact that 'We the People' is beginning to mean all of us." - Condoleezza Rice

"[Obama] is running for president of all Americans, not just African-Americans. [We] must be careful not to segregate Senator Obama and impose some litmus test that is unfair and unproductive." - Rev. Al Sharpton

"Welcome to the murky world of modern racism, where most of the open animus has been replaced by a shadowy bias that is difficult to measure. As Obama gently put it in his race speech, today's racial 'resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company.' However, they can be — and possibly will be — expressed in the privacy of the voting booth." - Charles M. Blow

"Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them and even if you don't agree with them. And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values and pass them on to the next generation, because we want our children and all children in this nation to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them." - Michelle Obama

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"I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election."- Barack Obama

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